The previous blog post in this series on the provenance of the Colebrooke Collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in the British Library examined the role of Indian ‘pandits’ in gathering the manuscripts. This blog outlines how Colebrooke, along with the pandits Citrapati and Bābūrāma, became entangled in accusations of corruption.

In 1807, Colebrooke was made a member of the supreme council of the Government of Bengal, a position he would hold until the end of 1812. He had established a reputation as both a capable administrator and a respected Sanskrit scholar, and his knowledge of Hindu law in particular had proven to be a great asset for the East India Company. However, at this time the EIC was still struggling to cast off its reputation as a rapacious corporation and present itself instead as a responsible administrator of British territories in India.

South East View of the New Government House of the East India Company in Calcutta, published in 1805 (British Library, P1685).

In the early years of the nineteenth century, a series of scandals led to the removal of several of the Company’s district judges. One of these was William Brodie who, in 1810, was suspended due to findings of corruption while he had been judge and magistrate of Purnia. The charges had centred on an inheritance dispute for which he had been accused of accepting a bribe from one of the parties. The allegations were made by a local landholder, Charles Reed, who had been representing one of the other parties in the dispute. The proceedings had dragged on, but Reed persisted, and after the verdict against Brodie was passed, Reed began making accusations against the higher-ranking members of the judiciary, who he believed had been obstructing his earlier efforts to bring Brodie to trial.

Colebrooke was one of those now in the firing line. When he had ascended to the supreme council, he had also taken on the role of chief judge of the superior court. Although his day-to-day involvement in the courts was limited, his reputation as an authority in Hindu law meant he was often consulted for his opinion. Charles Reed now accused him of misusing his authority, and Colebrooke vigorously defended himself. In the records of the proceedings of the supreme council we find a number of lengthy responses Colebrooke made to these allegations. He also gave up his position as chief judge, in an effort to prevent any future accusations.

The New Court House and Chandpal Ghaut, from a set of views of Calcutta, published in 1788 (British Library, P46).

However, Colebrooke’s efforts to protect himself would have implications for the pandits he had formerly employed. Citrapati, now pandit of the superior court, had earlier been called on to give an opinion on the inheritance dispute mentioned above. However, he was then accused of receiving a bribe from one of the parties. Charles Reed seized on Citrapati’s connections with Colebrooke in order to accuse the latter, and Colebrooke again sought to defend himself. In doing so, however, he left Citrapati exposed. In a supreme council meeting in February 1812, Colebrooke claimed that Citrapati had visited him at his home ‘with much apparent agitation’ to report the charge brought against him. Colebrooke recounted that he replied to Citrapati that ‘whatever explanation or vindication he had to offer… must be stated, not to me, but to the court before which the accusation has been preferred.’ He then ‘immediately dismissed him, and have forbidden his future visits to my house.’

Extract from Colebrooke’s Minute, presented to the Supreme Council at their meeting at Fort William on 10 February 1812 (British Library, IOR P/130/45, 10 February 1812, No. 19).

Citrapati was adamant that he had refused the offer of a bribe. However, he had not spoken of it until this time, and this, Colebrooke claimed, ‘indicates a way of thinking not accordant with the delicate and scrupulous integrity which should be expected from a person holding the office which he does’. Furthermore, he claimed, ‘it will constitute in my opinion a sufficient ground for his removal though he should be proved innocent of the charge.’ (IOR/P/130/45, 10 February 1812, No. 19). The rest of the council concurred, and Citrapati was immediately suspended, pending an investigation.

Bābūrāma also found himself embroiled in the allegations against Citrapati. In a statement made to the court, Citrapati claimed that, after he had refused the proffered bribe, the alleged briber tried to leave the money at Citrapati’s house, promising to collect it the next day. Citrapati refused this also and stated that: "I afterwards heard that having left them [the money] with Bābūrāma, whose house is at some distance from mine, he had departed, and that he had said to Bābūrāma that he would on the morrow send a man to fetch them; but next day no man came to take them away. On the day following, Bābūrāma took the money… and gave it to him" [i.e. back to the alleged briber] (IOR/P/130/45, 18 February 1812, No. 79).

Reed seized on this detail, asserting that the bribe had been ‘left in deposit with one of Mr Colebrooke’s servants’ and that ‘it will necessarily follow that Mr Colebrooke is guilty of a most heinous offence, equally so as if the money had been deposited for the joint benefit of himself and Citrapati’ (IOR/P/130/45, 10 February 1812, No. 20). Colebrooke sought to defend himself against this association, declaring: "The person mentioned as my servant and with whom the rejected bribe is said to have been afterwards for a short time deposited, is one who was formerly employed by me as a Sanskrit Copyist. He ceased to be employed by me in that capacity six or seven years ago, on his setting up a Sanskrit Press. But I have since continued to him a monthly allowance in consideration of his occasionally attending to sort and arrange my collection of oriental manuscripts. In this relation of service towards me, it was a great dereliction of duty to undertake, for a day, or for an hour, the custody of a deposit yet tainted with the corrupt destination it had borne though rejected."

He went on: "However mortifying it is to find that some at least, if not all these persons, are so undeserving of the favourable opinion I entertained of them, and that several of them happen by a vexatious coincidence to be persons who have been at some period in my service, I trust that my name has been in no shape mixed in their proceedings." (IOR/P/130/45, 10 February 1812, No. 21)

In a context in which the EIC was under close scrutiny from critics in Britain, Colebrooke was keen to protect himself from any suspicion of misconduct. However, this came at the expense of the pandits whose assistance had been vital to his achievements in India.

Several months passed following Citrapati’s suspension, and then in November 1812 his voice once more appears in the proceedings of the Government of Bengal. Citrapati submitted a petition to the Governor General, ending with a plea ‘that your Lordship in Council will deem it proper to clear from the false accusation a poor Pundit (your Petitioner) who is for a period of nine months oppressed under the suspension from his office, and at the same time will be pleased to extend your natural clemency towards him by pronouncing an order for reinstating him to his former situation’ (IOR/P/131/7, 14 November 1812, No. 21).

The ending of Citrapati’s petition to the Governor General of Bengal (IOR/P/131/7, 14 November 1812, No. 21).

Problems with locating the relevant witnesses meant that the enquiries into Citrapati’s case were again delayed. He submitted a further petition in February 1813, but to no avail. A year later, in March 1814, Citrapati died, and the investigation was never concluded. As for Bābūrāma, it is unclear whether Colebrooke continued to employ him as a librarian. But we know that his Sanskrit Press ceased to operate following Colebrooke’s departure from India, in 1814.

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts on the provenance of the Colebrooke collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in the British Library. The first post introduced the Colebrooke family and the East India Company; the second post focused on Colebrooke's manuscripts on Hindu law and the third on Colebrooke and the pandits. The next, and final, blog in this series considers the legacies of Colebrooke and his pandits.

Works Consulted
Jha, Jagdish Chandra, ‘Some Light on the Early Judicial System of the East India Company’, The Journal of the Bihar Research Society Vol. LIII, Parts I-V (1967), pp. 214-223.
Rocher, Rosanne and Rocher, Ludo, The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company (London: Routledge, 2012).
Minute of H. T. Colebrooke, 17 December 1811 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 17 December 1811, No. 1). British Library, IOR/P/148/71.
Minute of H. T. Colebrooke, 6 February 1812 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 10 February 1812, No. 19). British Library, IOR/P/130/45.
Letter from Charles Reed to the Governor General, 7 February 1812 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 10 February 1812, No. 20). British Library, IOR/P/130/45.
Minute of H. T. Colebrooke, 7 February 1812 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 10 February 1812, No. 21). British Library, IOR/P/130/45.
Statement by Citrapati [D], 13 February 1812 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 18 February 1812, No. 79). British Library, IOR/P/130/45.
Petition of Citrapati (Government of Bengal Proceedings 14 November 1812, No. 21). British Library, IOR/P/131/7.

David Woodbridge, Provenance Researcher Sanskrit Collections (REAP pilot project 2023-2025)

This guest blog is by Lina Elhage-Mensching, Research Associate at Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony.

This blog post is both a result and a demonstration of the valuable cooperation between the British Library and the Göttingen Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament project, of which the DFG-funded project Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary is a satellite project.[i] I wish to dedicate it to Mrs Ilana Tahan, who sadly passed away and whose contribution was key to the showcase presented in what follows.

The start of the readings from the Holy Week Lectionary, beginning with the passage for early Holy Monday, comprised of a reading from the "Torah of Moses" corresponding to the beginning of Genesis. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 31r)

The showcase presents a manuscript that is preserved at the British Library in London under the shelfmark Add MS 5997.[ii] The manuscript under discussion was the primary source used by Oswald H.E. Burmester[iii] in his study of the structure of the Book of the Holy Pascha, i.e. the Holy Week lectionary used by the Coptic Orthodox Church.[iv] In particular, in volumes one and two of his Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte[v], O.H.E. Burmester (1897–1977) collated a total of 21 manuscripts, of which two are Sahidic and nineteen are Bohairic. As he noted, he published the text of the oldest dated Holy Week lectionary[vi] and gave a Concordance Table at the end of his edition with a comprehensive list of all readings derived from the various manuscripts he had studied in his work.[vii] On the ba­sis of his collation, Burmester indicates that, in consideration of the omissions and additions observed in the manu­scripts, the lectionaries could be divided into three categories. The first category comprises fifteen collated manuscripts that belong to the ‘normal type,’ and correspond to the current service of the Coptic Church. The second category is represented by two manuscripts that lack many pericopes of the Old Testament, which led Burmester to suppose that they mirrored the service before the revision by Peter of Behnesā.[viii] The third category is represented by four manuscripts with many additional readings for the day hours’ services, which Burmester assumed to be ar­ranged following Peter of Behnesā’s revision.[ix] The manuscript described in this showcase belongs to the second category.

A folio from the Lectionary featuring passages from the Gospels of Luke and John, as well as a strip from a Syriac manuscript used as a patch. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 254r)

A Coptic Holy Week lectionary covers all the days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. During the course of Holy Week, each day is divided into ten hours, with five designated as ‘Hours of the Day’ and five as ‘Hours of the Eve’. The readings for each period are drawn from both the Old and New Testaments. Some Hours comprise more readings than others and extracts from homilies. Moreover, the Psalter in its entirety is recited on Holy Friday whereas the odes of the Old and the New Testament, the book of Revelation, and the Gospel according to John are read in full at various moments on Holy Saturday.[x] The Holy Week lectionary at issue is a bilingual Bohairic­–Arabic paper codex entitled كتاب البصخه المقدسه (The Book of the Holy Pascha), in Arabic only. Originating from Wādī Naṭrūn in Lower Egypt, it is dated to 22nd Toth, 990 AM = 19th September 1273 CE,[xi] The codex consists of 315 folios, measuring 247 x 342 mm each, and featuring a text in two columns of about 25 lines per column. The paper is most probably of local provenance with no watermarks. The parallel Bohairic and Arabic texts are liturgical readings, hymns and prayers for the period between the first Hour of the Eve of Palm Sunday and the first Hour of the Eve of Easter Monday. This lectionary follows the sequence of five Canonical Hours[xii] of the Eve (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) and five Canonical Hours of the Day itself (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) for every day of the Holy Week. There is also a 12th Hour on Holy Friday commemorating the entombment of Christ. The readings are pericopes from the Old Testament –the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the Poetry and Wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Wisdom, Sirach), the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel), the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Malachi)– and from the New Testament, i.e., the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul (1Corinthians, 2Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1Timothy Hebrews), and 1Peter. There are no homilies in this Holy Week lectionary.[xiii]

You will find a brief overview of the characteristics of this codex on the Catalog of the Holy Week Lectionary Bohairic website.

The codex structure can be viewed in the Göttingen Virtual Manuscript Room.

A semi-diplomatic edition of the complete codex can be viewed in the VMR workspace.

Since Burmester’s pioneering work, two dated Holy Week lectionaries from an earlier period have been identified. However, one is written entirely in Arabic, and only 26 fragmentary folios of the other survive. Although the manuscript Add MS 5997 preserved at the British Library is not the oldest extant dated Coptic Holy Week lectionary, it is the oldest complete bilingual one. It is therefore highly valuable for the study and research history of Coptic liturgical manuscripts, which is why it was chosen for the showcase.

Lina Elhage-Mensching
Research Associate, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, currently working on the project ‘Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary.’

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[i] The manuscript presented in this blog post is one of the most important manuscripts studied in the framework of the DFG (German Research Foundation) project (DFG n° 491266891 ) at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, with the title ‘Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary,’ launched in 2022.

[ii] See W.E. Crum, Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Museum. London, 1905, 513–514.

[iii] From 1945 onwards, O.H.E. Burmester added the attribute 'KHS' to his surname, signing his name as 'O.H.E. KHS-Burmester'. 'KHS' is an abbreviation of Χατζής, a Greek title given to Christians who had undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. See also note 5 by E. Hammerschmidt in KHS-Burmester, Oswald Hugh Ewart, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Part 1: Die Handschriftenfragmente der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg . Wiesbaden, 1975.

[iv] This manuscript is one of those studied within the framework of the DFG-funded project entitled 'Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary', which was launched at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony in 2022. See https://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/web/digital-edition-of-the-coptic-holy-week-lectionary/project.

[v] O.H.E. Burmester, Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte : Texte Copte édité avec traduction française par E. Porcher après le manuscrit Add. 5997 du British Museum (2 vols.; PO 24.2 and 25.2; Paris : Firmin-Didot, 1933/1939), 1.173–294, 2.179–470. The same year O.H.E. Burmester was awarded his Ph.D. degree in Philosophy by the University of Cambridge with a thesis titled Bohairic pericopae of Wisdom and Sirach & Coptic Church Offices . For more information on Burmester’s vita, see “In Memoriam O.H.E. Khs-Burmester (1897–1977),” in Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte 23 (1976–1978), [1].

[vi] Dating back to 1273 AD. While it is indeed the oldest extant complete and dated Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary, there are two other and older witnesses of the Holy Week Lectionary of the Coptic Church. The oldest one is a fragmentary manuscript written in Bohairic with a colophon dated AM 880 = AD 1164 and is kept at the National Library of Greece in Athens under shelfmark EBE 3550/Δ. The second oldest extant Holy Week lectionary is a monolingual Arabic lectionary with a colophon dated AM 900 = AD 1184 and is kept at the Monastery of St Antony in Egypt under shelf-mark Taqs 260.

[vii] See Burmester, Lectionnaire, II, 476–85.

[viii] For more information about the revision by Peter of Behnesa, see Burmester, “A Coptic Lectionary Poem (from Ms. 408, Coptic Museum, Cairo)”, in Le Muséon 43, 1930, 375–385.

[ix] See Burmester, Lectionnaire, I, 175.

[x] See D. Atanassova “Neue Erkenntnisse bei der Erforschung der Sahidischen Quellen für die Paschawoche,” in Egypt and the Christian Orient. Peter Nagel zum 80. Geburtstag , Texte und Studien zu Koptischen Bibel 1, eds. H. Behlmer, U. Pietruschka, F. Feder. Wiesbaden, 2018, 1­–37, 1 and 25.

[xi] Colophon on page <315v>.

[xii] According to the tradition of the Coptic Church, in an effort to “introduce some uniformi­ty in the services,” the first Coptic Holy Week lectionary was composed by Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik (1131–1146), in the first half of the 12 ^th century. See Burmester, “The Canons of Gabriel Ibn Turaik, LXX Patriarch of Alexandria” in OCP 1 (1935), 5–45.

[xiii] A clear indication that this lectionary precedes the revision by Bishop Peter of Behnesā, who added lessons and homilies to the lectionary of the Coptic Church in the 13 ^th century. See Burmester, Lectionnaire, I, 173; L. Villecourt, “Les observances liturgiques et la discipline du jeûne dans l’Église copte (d’après la Lampe des ténèbres, chap. XVI–XIX),” in Le Muséon 37 (1924), 201–280, 260.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra or the Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines is one of the earliest works of Mahayana Buddhism and the earliest of the Perfection of Wisdom cycle. It probably originated in South and South-Central India, about the 2nd century CE. The Ashtasahasrika consists of 32 chapters, but in the centuries that followed its composition, it was both expanded - up to 100,000 sections - and contracted down to a few brief verses, and finally into one syllable (“A”).

The Buddha,12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 1v

The Ashtasahasrika was the first philosophical text to be translated from the Mahayana literature into Chinese. It was also translated into Tibetan, first around 850 CE and then again in 1020, and was subsequently compared with many Indian manuscripts and commentaries and revised in 1030, 1070 and again in 1500 (Conze 1975: xi).

Devi Prajnaparamita, the personification of wisdom, seated in Padmasana holding a book, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 2v

The manuscript copies of this text found in India are among the oldest of the Mahayana scriptures and they typically feature miniatures depicting buddhas, bodhisattvas, goddesses, wrathful divinities, and the eight great events in the life of Gautama the Buddha. However, these illustrations are not related to the text itself (Losty 1982: 20). The miniatures are usually placed at the beginning, in the middle (beginning of the 12th chapter), and at the end of the text.

The British Library holds some early manuscript copies of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita. One of the earliest copies is Or. 6902, written in Kutila script on palm leaf. It was copied in c. 970, at the monastery of Vikramashila (modern day Bihar). Vikramshila was a monastic university founded by King Dharmapala (c. 781-821) to teach the doctrine of the Prajnaparamita, but was destroyed, along with other Buddhist monasteries, at the end of the 12th century, by the forces of Muhammad of Ghor.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on palm leaf, Bodhisattva Manjusri, Vikramshila, c. 970 CE, British Library, Or. 6902, f. 336v

Another copy, Or. 12461, also in Kutila script, is written on talipot leaves. It can be dated to the late Pala period in the middle of the12th century and was copied at a monastery other than Nalanda or Vikramshila. It is heavily illustrated and misses a few folios. The miniatures in this copy have a complex arrangement, with the usual placement being combined with another cycle of miniatures. Also, the selection of divinities and their pairing within the overall scheme is unclear, perhaps suggesting a single enormous Mandala (Losty 1982:33).

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on talipot leaf, White Tara, Eastern India or Nepal, 12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 192v

A third copy, Or. 14203 is in proto-Bengali script and was written in the 12-13th century. There is a mixture of Indian and Nepalese elements in this manuscript. The script is an example of the transition from the Siddhamatrka script of the Bihar monasteries and the Bengali hand (Zwalf 1985: 117).

The Ashtasahasrika discusses the nature of Buddhahood, Bodhisattvahood, and of Wisdom. Like the Lalitavistara and other Mahayana sutras, the topics in this text are expounded in two versions: prose and verse. The verses are earlier and in what could be termed ‘Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit’, while the prose is generally in Sanskrit (Conze 1967: 168-9). The verse section is preserved under the name Ratnaguna (Prajnaparamita-Ratnaguna-samcaya-gatha) which consists of 302 “verses on the Perfection of Wisdom which is the Storehouse of Precious Virtues”. 

The original text of the Ratnaguna seems to have been lost, and the existing composition, has been rearranged or divided into chapters by Haribhadra, the great expert on the Perfection of Wisdom, in the 8th century. Therefore, its historical and chronological aspects cannot be easily determined as we cannot be certain if Haribhadra added, omitted, or altered occasional verses. Unfortunately, the Chinese translators also missed the original text and produced a translation of Haribhadra’s revision in 1001 CE (Conze 1967: 168-9). The 41 verses of the first two chapters of the Ratnaguna may well go back to 100 B.C. They constitute the original Prajnaparamita and all the other versions seem to be their elaborations. These chapters form one single text held together by the constant recurrence of the verse “and that is the practice of wisdom, the highest perfection” (Conze 1975: x).

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Lantsa script on indigo paper, Prajnaparamita Devi and a bodhisattva, probably Avalokiteshvara, Nepal, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 2v

Like other Mahayana sutras, the Ashtasahasrika is in form of dialogues between the Buddha Shakyamuni, three of his best disciples, and others such as Indra, the king of gods, and the Goddess of the Ganges. The three disciples - Subhuti, Shariputra, Ananda - are technically known as ‘auditors’ (shravaka) because they have heard the doctrine directly from the Buddha. The dialogues present the teachings on emptiness and describe the path and practices a bodhisattva should take to realise it.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in proto-Bengali script on palm leaf, the bodhisattva Lokanatha with Varada-mudra, Eastern India and Nepal, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 14203, f. 14r

In these dialogues, what is said is just as important as who says it:

Where Subhuti, “the foremost of those who dwell in peace”, talks, it is the Buddha himself who speaks through him. He was one of “the eighty great disciples” of the tradition of the Elders (Theravadins) who was distinguished for his practice of friendliness or loving-kindness and for understanding emptiness. In older Buddhism, loving-kindness (maitri) was a minor virtue, but in Mahayana it is revered to the point where its embodiment, Subhuti, is placed above all the other disciples.

Shariputra had been for the Elders the first of those highly mastered in Wisdom. Wisdom, a term for “Abhidharma” (meaning higher doctrine), grew among the followers of the Buddha three centuries after his death. Abhidharma is a system of meditation that analyses and classifies all the processes and events in the conditioned world which could affect salvation. In the Mahayana tradition, however, Shariputra is portrayed as being blind to the One Ultimate Truth, and unable to get away from his preoccupation with multiplicity and dualities. He is no longer the “second Buddha” of the older tradition.

Ananda, known as “the treasurer of the Dharma”, was the Buddha’s personal attendant for thirty years. He was well known for his devotion to the Buddha and had heard all the Buddha’s discourses. He was also famous for his sharp memory, and was said to have been able to take in 60,000 lines uttered by the Buddha, without missing a single syllable.

In addition to these three disciples, we have Purna, Maitreya, the coming Buddha, and Shakra, the chief of gods, each speaking on different topics. The sutra starts in the traditional way: “Thus have I heard at one time”- “I” here is Ananda who is believed to have recited also this sutra shortly after the Buddha’s Nirvana. (Conze 1975: xii-xiv)

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on talipot leaf, Sarvanivarana-Vishkambhin, Eastern India and Nepal, 12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 250v

Like many Mahayana texts, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita emphasises that the phenomenal world does not really exist, even the perfection of wisdom does not exist, as it is immeasurable, eternal, and without end. The passage compares it with space: just as space has no measure, no duration, no end, similarly, the perfection of wisdom has no measure, no duration, no end. (Bronkhorst 2009: 120)

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on palm leaf, the Buddha with hands in the dharmachakra-mudra seated with his two disciples, Vikramshila, c. 970 CE. British Library, Or. 6902, f. 1v

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Lantsa script on indigo paper, the Buddha and a figure holding a vina (the musical instrument) with blue lotus on either side, Nepal,12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 1v

The bodhisattva Sarvanivarana-Vishkambhin, Eastern India,12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 250v

Bibliography
British Museum. Dept. of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts. Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1902.
Conze, Edward. Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies: Selected Essays by Edward Conze. Oxford: Cassirer; London: Faber, 1967.
Conze, Edward. The Perfection of Wisdom in eight thousand lines, and its verse summary. Four Seasons Foundation, 1975.
Losty, Jeremiah P. The Art of the Book in India. London: British Library, 1982.
Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2009.
Zwalf, W. Buddhism: Art and Faith. London: British Museum Publications for the Trustees of the British Museum and the British Library Board, 1985.

Azadeh Sokouhi, Sanskrit cataloguer

 

Have you visited the British Library’s current family exhibition Story Explorers: A Journey through Imaginary Worlds (19 May 2025- 18 January 2026) and wondered why is there an ancient Egyptian funerary slab from 2000 BC in the Library?  

Almost twenty years ago, in 2006, the British Library received the Talbot Collection as a major gift from Mrs. Petronella and Janet Burnett-Brown. Petronella’s late husband Anthony was the great-great grandson of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77), who was the British inventory of photography. Janet was Anthony's sister and together they managed the Talbot photographic collection and archive at their home at Lacock Abbey until the early 2000s.

The Talbot Collection included an extensive archive of Talbot's correspondence, notebooks, negatives and photographs, alongside scientific instruments and other ephemera that illustrated the breadth of Talbot’s cultural and scientific interests and achievements. Talbot's interests were in fields as diverse as mathematics, botany, astronomy and the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform. In additional to the manuscript and photographic component of this collection, there is a group of ancient Egyptian funerary objects—including shabti figurines and stelae – which are now viewed the oldest items in the British Library.  

A late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC) Egyptian funerary stela for the highly-born woman Imaw (or Iamu). British Library, Talbot Stela 11. Rectangular limestone stela, some remaining red pigment, measuring 51.6cm (width) x 48.3cm (height) x 8.8cm (depth). Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance Tax, 2006. Gift of Petronella Burnett-Brown and Janet Burnett-Brown.

Last spring, our doctoral placement student Grace Exley, had the opportunity to research the object histories and provenance of the twenty-six Egyptian funerary objects that were once collected by Talbot. Grace undertook extensive archival research at the Library, consulting Talbot’s archive, auction catalogues, and key academic sources. She prepared detailed catalogue records and provided a helpful summary: 

William Henry Fox Talbot had a long-standing interest in ancient cultures, publishing multiple books on classical and antiquarian subjects. He was especially interested in translating ancient languages, particularly Assyrian, which is perhaps the best known of his antiquarian interests. However, Talbot was initially interested in Egyptian hieroglyphics, even sending them to his mother and half-sister as translation challenges. He was well-connected to a number of Egyptologists, including Karl Lepsius (1810-1884), Samuel Birch (1813-1885), and William John Bankes (1786-1855). He even met the famed Italian strongman and explorer of the tomb of Seti I, Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) in 1820.  

Where Talbot acquired his Egyptian collection is unclear. It seems he grew the collection by acquiring pieces over time from various sources. For example, it seems Talbot’s cousin Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890) tried to find Egyptian antiquities for Talbot on his trip to Egypt in 1827 (British Library, Add MS 88942/2/117). Talbot was also aware of various auctions of antiquarian material, such as the 1836 sale of James Burton Junior’s Egyptian collection in London (as illustrated by a letter sent to Talbot, Add MS 88942/8/76). It is therefore likely that Talbot acquired his Egyptian objects over an extended period, supported by the one reference Talbot made to purchasing Egyptian artefacts in his pocketbook for 1836-1837. Talbot wrote that he had purchased a hieroglyphic manuscript and a hieroglyphic tablet (p.18), followed by three more hieroglyphic tablets (p.19). These references are within Talbot’s accounts, and the brief details mean that it is impossible to tie these entries to specific stelae. The hieroglyphic manuscript was sold at auction in the 1980s, along with other items from Talbot’s Egyptian collection. 

Of the twenty-six Egyptian objects that are now at the British Library, we selected one of the stela to be featured in the Story Explorers exhibition. With the exhibition team Nicola Pomeroy, Mariam de Haan and Stephen Nicholls wishing to feature a range of Library objects to demonstrate the vast range of material types held in the collections (not just books!), we brought to their attention the Egyptian collection. In the gallery, the stela is featured alongside an early 20th century Javanese shadow puppet and an educational shellac record from the Talking Book Corporation that featured man made vocalisations of foxes! 

The selected stela is the largest in size held in The British Library. Rectangular in shape, it is cut out of limestone with some pigments still visible in the relief. It dates to the late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC). It was prepared for the highly-born woman iAm-Hqt, Imaw (or Iamu), with two registers incised in sunken relief. The five lines of hieroglyphics in the upper register give the deceased's titles, 'the sole royal ornament, priestess of Hathor', and ask not only for commodities (bread, beer, oxen, geese, alabaster, and linen) in thousands, but also a good burial in her tomb in the necropolis of the Western desert.

Detail showing the visible residue of pigments in the relief. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.

The lower left part of the stela shows the deceased, Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. She wears a long, close-fitting dress with a wide collar and straps, as well as a wig decorated with curls, and both mirror images hold long, spear-headed sticks or staffs. On the right are two other figures, one male and one female. The female is likely Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAmit and the male, whose arms are outstretched, is unnamed and wears a kilt in late Old Kingdom to early Heracleopolitan style. There is one column of hieroglyphics in the lower left corner of the slab, which seems to be a continuation of the five horizontal lines of text, reading: "for the revered one before the great god iAm-Hqt".

Detail of Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.

During Talbot's lifetime and in subsequent years, the Egyptian collection was on display throughout his home at Lacock Abbey, in Wiltshire. Talbot used objects found in his home for his photography experiments and even photographed this particular stela, as cited by Grace in her research. The photographic print, a salted paper print, can be viewed on the Talbot Catalogue Raisonne Project website. 

Until the 20th century, the Talbot family owned Lacock Abbey and the surrounding village of Lacock and it was his descendant Matilda Talbot (1871-1958) who presented the village and the home to the care of the National Trust in 1944. Anthony and his family would live at Lacock from 1971 through the 2000s.

Talbot's collection of photographs, archives and objects were formally presented to the British Library in 2006 by the family of Anthony Burnett-Brown. Until last year, a selection of the Egyptian items remained on display at the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock and were brought to the Library for permanent storage. For researchers wishing to consult the collection, Talbot's manuscripts can be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room while the photographs and objects in the Print Room (located inside the Asia and Africa Reading Room). For researchers wishing to consult the collection, appointments can be made by sending an email to [email protected]. 

Grace Exley and the Visual Arts Team

Further reading and information:

 

Featured in Talbot photographic collections. Schaaf nos: 5031 and 3685.

 

Record of Talbot purchasing stelae and a manuscript:

Talbot pocketbook, 1836-7. British Library Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/5/1/26, pp.18-19.

 

Correspondence with Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot regarding the purchase of Egyptian artefacts:

Talbot, C.R.M. 1827. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 12th June. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/2/117

 

Talbot, C.R.M. 1827. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 18th November. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/8/76 [This letter also contains a reference to the death of Henry Salt (1780-1827), whose Egyptian collection was sold in London in June, 1835.]

 

Correspondence mentioning the sale of James Burton’s collection of antiquities:

Lambert, A.B. 1836. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 14th July. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/8/76.

 

Talbot’s meeting with Belzoni was mentioned in a letter to his step-father:

Talbot, W.H.F. 1820. Letter to Charles Feilding. August 20th. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/2/38 

This guest blog is by Muhammed Khaleel, who in 2024 surveyed early Arabi-Malayalam lithographed books in the British Library.

While I was going through the uncatalogued collections of early Arabi-Malayalam printed books in the Asian and African Collections in the British Library, I came across dozens of lithographed books all sharing a consistent structure, style and format, and which were copied by no more than three scribes all with very similar handwriting, suggesting a common origin. However, essential data such as author details, copyright information and seals of registration were missing from the title pages compared to later Arabi-Malayalam texts printed in the twentieth century in Kerala, while the colophons generally only gave information on the publisher. I thus began checking these works in detail against the entries in the official quarterly lists of books published from Madras, the Fort St. George Gazette Supplement, which is also held in the British Library.

After a detailed examination, I found that these books were all published in the 1870s and 1880s by early lithographic presses owned by Mappila Muslims based in Thalassery, a major port city in northern Malabar, in the South Indian state of Kerala. During this period, the important figures who established the early presses were Thalassery Mēlēkkandi KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī, Veḷippicc Kandi Kuññi Moosa, Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad, and Nīrāṭṭu Pīṭikayil Kuññi Aḥmad. The location of these presses at Thalassery, a city historically renowned for its trade and cultural interactions since the early modern times, soon made the city the major center of Arabi-Malayalam printing, until Aniyārappuṟattu Ammu established his famous Muḥkī al-Gharā’ib press in the end of the nineteenth century in Ponnāni. Thereafter, the center of Arabi-Malayalam printing shifted from Thalassery to Tirūrangādi and Ponnāni, two cities in the district of Malappuram, which were also renowned as religious centers of Malabar.

Fig. 1. Title page (left) and colophon (right) of kappappāṭṭ, a literary text printed in 1882 at KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī’s press by his son Nāyam vītil ʿAbduh: Nāyam vīṭil purayil vecc accadiccirikkunnu, ‘printed at Nāyam vītil house’. British Library (shelfmark pending)

As is evident from the colophons, these early lithographic presses didn’t have official names or offices but were established by the aforementioned figures in their private homes in Thalassery, except for Kuññi Moosa, who established his printing press in Thalassery Bazar, the then city center.

Fig.2. Title page (left) and colophon (right) of Kelavante pāṭṭ published by Veḷippicc Kandi Kuññi Moosa’s press in 1875. British Library (shelfmark pending)

Athough lithographic presses had been present in Malabar since 1821, it is not clearly recorded when the first Arabi-Malayalam lithograph was published. However, the press established by KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī in his residence, Nāyam vītil, was the first lithographic press under the Muslim ownership to print Arabi-Malayalam texts. KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī, a passionate person in spreading knowledge, sent one of his sons, Kuññaḥmed, to the Basel Mission printing press in Thalassery to work as a printer (Aabu 1970: 126). After learning the technique of lithographic printing, Kuññaḥmed came back to help his father KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī establish the press in 1867. Registered as ‘Koyali hajee, nayan veetil in pazhassi tellicherry’ the press began its operation by printing a Qurʾān.

Around this time, probably in the mid-1870s, Velippicc Kandi Kuññi Moosa also established his press in Thalassery Bazar which was recorded as ‘Valmiki rawdi coonji nissa’ in the quarterly list. During the same decade, another publisher named Nīrātti Pīṭikayil Kuññi Aḥmed, recorded in the quarterly list as Nuratti padikail kunḥammed, began appearing in the scene, as did Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad who printed books at his home in Thayyil Kandi in Tiruvangād. Interestingly, all these presses published several of the same titles during the 1870s and 1880s as is evident from the British Library collection. Despite printing the same titles, there apparently held a competition between presses on various matters.


Fig. 3. Paratextual sections in a much later text titled Karāmāt al-a’aẓam, printed in 1950, with full publication details. British Library (shelfmark pending)

In terms of the very simple structure, format and style, these books are evidently forerunners in Arabi-Malayalam printing. There is almost no decoration except for the title page, where the title is written in a small font size on the top of the page with extremely minimal floral decorations (see fig.1 and 2). O. Aabu, a historian of Arabi-Malayalam, argues that press owners did not pay attention to designs and decorations in the title page (1970: 127), and yet several floral designs and decorations can be seen in the early Qurʾān printed by KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī in 1867. I suggest that this could be for two reasons: firstly, as lithographs are basically copied from manuscripts, the scribes copied what they saw in manuscripts of the Qurʾān, which were more likely to be decorated than other manuscripts. The second possibility is that the scribes wanted to make Qurʾān unique in its design from other texts, and hence made it distinct with decorations. The former is more likely as we do see a difference compared with literary texts: in other words, the Qurʾān and other religious texts were decorated to signify their sacrality.

Fig. 4a. Title page of Muḥyudhīn malā published by Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad’s press in 1875. British Library (shelfmark pending)

Fig. 4b. Colophon of Muḥyudhīn malā published by Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad’s press in 1875. British Library (shelfmark pending)

Although all these texts had colophons, they only provided the information about the printing press, its owner, the scribe of the lithograph and the date of copying. Other important information such as the identity of the author and copyright information were not found. The highlighting of publisher details suggests that the presses deemed this information as more relevant than others.

Fig. 5a. Title page of Niskārattinte duāʿyum mattum published by Nīrāṭṭu Pīṭikayil Kuññi Aḥmad in 1875. British Library (shelfmark pending)

Fig. 5b. Colophon page of Niskārattinte duāʿyum mattum (1875) published by Nīrāṭṭu Pīṭikayil Kuññi Aḥmad in 1875. British Library (shelfmark pending)

Further, it can be noticed that the early concept of copyright in Arabi-Malayalam imprints was both fluid and contested. For instance, Muḥyudhīn malā, one of the most well-renowned liturgies in Malabar written by Qāḍī Muḥammed (d. 1616), on the life of a Baghdadi ṣūfī, ʿAbdul Qādir al-Jīlanī (d. 1116), was published by almost all these publishers without any copyright statements. The British Library holds at least three early copies of the text, one aprinted by Nīrāṭṭu Pīṭikayil Kuññi Aḥmad in 1873, a second by Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad in 1875 and another by KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī in 1876. Concomitantly, there were assertions of the right to publish the text as well, in terms which are slightly different from contemporary copyright laws. The copy of Muḥyudhīn malā published by KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī mentions that their lithograph is a direct copy of the original manuscript of the text that was preserved by the family of Qāḍī Muḥammed, which is a clear statement claiming that KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī had more authority to publish the text than his counterparts.

Fig.6. Title page (left) and colophon (right) of an early copy of Cārdarveś published by Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad’s press in 1875, although a few accounts state that Cārdarveś was first published in 1883 (See Moulavi and Kareem, 1978). British Library (shelfmark pending)

The early lithographic presses also competed with each other on printing popular literary titles. The earliest literary text in the collection is from 1871, printed by the press of Kuññi Moosa, and was followed by a significant number of texts in the next year. During the same year, the press of Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad also marked its entry by printing the novel Cārdarveś, resulting in an apparent competition between the press of Kuññi Moosa and that of Arayālappuṟatt Kuññaḥammad. The British Library collection reveals that 1875 saw the peak of competition between the two presses in publishing literary texts containing panegyrics, hagiographies and different types of songs related to Islamic history. Surprisingly, KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī’s press only joined the trend of publishing literary texts in the early 1880s, after focusing earlier on core religious subjects such as jurisprudence and theology, with titles such as Manāsik al-ḥajj (1875), Īmān: Islām tarjama (1875), Wājibāt al-mukallafīn (1881) and so on. Muḥuyudhīn māla, printed in 1875, was the only exception to this.

By 1881, KoyāʿAlī Ḥājī’s press began printing literary texts containing panegyrics, song traditions such as Qiṣṣappāttu and Malappāttu, and other cultural forms of Persian tales, reaching a peak in 1883. Some of the common titles printed by all these publishers are Jinn pada paatt, Kavi pattukalum padangalum, Kappappatt, Yusuf qiṣṣa ppāttu, Valiya kaccodappātt, Tashrif oppana, and so on. However, both the British Library collection and the quarterly lists indicate an absence of publications from these presses in the 1890s, suggesting that by this date these presses might have closed, or changed their names.

Muhammed Khaleel

Muhammed Khaleel is a graduate (2025) of the  dual degree in MA Islamic studies and Muslim Cultures at Columbia university, New York and Aga Khan University, London. His research interests include history of occult sciences, manuscript cultures, history of science, book history and history of Arabi-Malayalam. E-mail: [email protected]

Further Reading
Aabu, O. (1970) Arabi Malayala sahitya caritram. Kottayam: sahitya pravrthaka co-operative society. 
Moulavi, C.A. and Kareem, K.A. (1978) Mahattāya mappila pārambaryam. Calicut: Paraspara sahayi co-operative press.

Editorial note, 3 July 2025: for further information on the British Library collection of Arabi-Malayalam printed books, see:
Arafath, P. Y. (2020). Polyglossic Malabar: Arabi-Malayalam and the Muhiyuddinmala in the age of transition (1600s–1750s). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 30(3), 517-539.
Gamliel, O., & Kalluvalappil, S. A. (2024). Arabi-Malayalam disaster ballads: performative poetry and community resilience. Nidān, 8(2), 93-110.
Kooria, M. (2023). Arabic-Malayalam Texts at the British Library: Themes, Genres, and Production. International Journal of Islam in Asia, 3(1-2), 89-127.

The previous blog post in this series on the provenance of the Colebrooke Collection examined the story behind the Sanskrit legal manuscripts which form part of the Colebrooke Collection. The role of Indian ‘pandits’ in gathering these manuscripts is a vital part of this story, and this blog will delve deeper into the identities and stories of some of these figures. 

The title ‘pandit’ has its origins in the Sanskrit term ‘paṇḍita’, meaning a learned person. Specifically, this learning was rooted in the knowledge of Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, and the vast literature, going back millennia, composed in that language. Hindu religious texts were at the heart of this, but it also encompassed a wide range of disciplines across the sciences and humanities. The job of a pandit was to preserve and expound on this learning. He did this through memorising and reciting scriptures, producing copies of texts, writing commentaries, and by passing on his knowledge to his students. 

A number of East India Company employees, curious to learn more about Indian culture, had spent time studying Sanskrit with pandits. A few years following his arrival in India, Colebrooke began to do the same.

Citrapati and family
From 1789-94, Colebrooke was posted to Purnia, in north-eastern Bihar. Here, he encountered a pandit named Citrapati, who became one of his first teachers. Citrapati is named as the copyist of a manuscript in the Colebrooke Collection, produced in 1790, which is a copy of a twelfth-century text on algebra:  

The final page from the Bījagaṇita, the chapter on algebra in Bhāskara’s Siddhāntaśiromaṇi, which contains a colophon stating that the text was copied, ‘by order of Colebrooke Sahib, by Mahopādhyāya Citrapati’. ‘Mahopādhyāya’ is a title meaning ‘learned teacher’. British Library, IO San 871b

Colebrooke’s initial interest in learning Sanskrit, therefore, stemmed from a desire to learn about Indian mathematics. It’s an interest he later returned to, and in 1817 he would publish a translation of the above text, as a part of a larger work: Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhàscara.

In a letter to his father, in 1797, Colebrooke recalled that ‘the means of acquiring the Sanskrit language were by translating a grammar and several dictionaries of it, with the help of a Brahmin [the priestly caste, of which pandits were members]’ (T. E. Colebrooke 1873, p. 89). Indeed, many of the manuscripts in the Colebrooke Collection dating from these years are grammatical works, including this one: 

A page from a copy of the Dhātupradīpa. British Library, IO San 434a 

This is the final page of a copy of the Dhātupradīpa, a twelfth-century work on Sanskrit grammar by Maitreya Rakṣita. The text ends with a colophon, identifying the copyist as ‘Vrajanandana Śarman, sister's son (bhāgineyaḥ) of Citrapati Śarman of Dhamdaha’. Vrajanandana, is named as the copyist for several manuscripts in the Colebrooke Collection, and this reflects how the profession of a pandit was something associated with entire families, often through many generations. Another text, produced about the same time, provides a window into Colebrooke’s study of Sanskrit under Citrapati and Vrajanandana: 

A page from the Amarakoṣa. British Library, IO San 3162

The text contained in the box in the centre of the page is from the Amarakoṣa, an early Sanskrit dictionary, copied in Bengali script by Vrajanandana. In the margins, in Colebrooke’s hand, are extracts from commentaries, written in Devanagari script, as well as English translations of certain phrases.

Bābūrāma
In 1795, Colebrooke received a new posting in Mirzapur, and here he met other pandits who would go on to produce manuscripts for him. The following image is from a copy of the Mahābhārata in the Colebrooke Collection. A colophon (in red ink) states the copyist to be ‘Bābūrāma, a Brahman of Mirzapur.’

A colophon in a copy of the Mahābhārata. British Library, IO San 1771

Like Citrapati, Bābūrāma first worked for Colebrooke as a copyist. But they would both accompany Colebrooke as he moved to different postings over the course of his career, and would continue to be employed either directly by him, or in roles connected to Colebrooke’s official duties with the East India Company.

In 1795, Colebrooke was appointed judge and magistrate for Mirzapur, and he appointed Citrapati to his official staff, in the role of pandit to the district court of Mirzapur. In this capacity, Citrapati provided advice to ensure that decisions taken in the court were consistent with Hindu law. 

Citrapati also produced manuscripts to assist with Colebrooke’s judicial duties. In 1797, Colebrooke had submitted a proposal to compile and translate a supplementary digest of Hindu law for use in the courts under EIC jurisdiction. For this work he was granted funds ‘to entertain the establishment of Pundits required by him’ (IOR/F/4/39/974). Citrapati was one of those employed, and for this he produced the Vyavahārasiddhāntapīyūṣā, a compilation of Hindu law codes with an accompanying commentary.

From the Vyavahārasiddhāntapīyūṣā.  The colophon, highlighted in red, identifies Citrapati Śarman as the compiler of the text and author of the accompanying commentary. It also states that the manuscript was composed for tāmasa-henṛks-kolabruka-sāhebājñayā, i.e. Henry Thomas Colebrooke.  British Library, IO San 3143

In 1802, Colebrooke was appointed a judge of the superior court in Calcutta [Kolkata]. Citrapati accompanied him to Calcutta, and then in 1806 was himself appointed to the superior court, as one of the two pandits employed to give decisions on Hindu law as it related to cases being tried in this court. 

Bābūrāma also accompanied Colebrooke to Calcutta, but his career went in a different direction. In a letter in June 1806, Colebrooke informed his father that ‘a printing press has been recently established by natives to print Sanskrit books on their own account. The types have been considerably improved for the purpose, under my directions; for, as you may easily suppose, the press has been established on encouragement from me’ (quoted in T. E. Colebrooke 1873, p. 227). It was Bābūrāma who took charge of this enterprise, and from 1807 to 1815 his Sanskrit Press produced editions of sixteen separate works of Sanskrit literature.

The Government of Bengal were subscribers to most of Bābūrāma’s publications, usually at the recommendation of Fort William College, which had been founded in Calcutta in 1800 to provide training for new EIC recruits. In this way, Bābūrāma’s proposal to print an edition of the epic poem Kiratarjuniya with the commentary called Ghaṇṭāpatha was supported by the Sanskrit professor at the College, who commented that, ‘They are both classical works, and will be useful in the College as class books’ (IOR/P/8/36). The Government agreed to subscribe for a hundred copies, to be distributed among the EIC colleges in Calcutta, Madras [Chennai], and Hertfordshire.

Similarly, the Government of Bengal ordered multiple copies of four legal texts produced by Bābūrāma’s Sanskrit Press, which they distributed not only to the different EIC colleges, but also to all of their law courts. Two of these texts, the Mitākṣarā and Dāyabhāga, had been translated by Colebrooke for his Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance, and it was largely due to Colebrooke’s opinion of the significance of these works that Bābūrāma’s editions received this support.

The careers of Citrapati and Bābūrāma were therefore closely entwined with that of Colebrooke. At a time when the EIC was seeking to establish a judicial framework for governing its subjects in South Asia, Colebrooke made himself indispensable with his in-depth knowledge of Hindu law. Citrapati and Bābūrāma, having guided Colebrooke in his Sanskrit studies, now also benefited from their patron’s rise. However, as the next blog post will show, although there were opportunities for pandits in the new India, their position was always a precarious one.

This is the third in a series of blog posts on the provenance of the Colebrooke collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in the British Library. The first post introduced the Colebrooke family and the East India Company, and the second post focused on Colebrooke's manuscripts on Hindu law.

Works consulted
Bābūrāma (ed.), Mitākṣarā (Calcutta: Sanskrit Press, 1812).
Bābūrāma (ed.), Dāyabhāga, with the commentary of Śrīkṛṣṇatarkālaṃkāra (Calcutta: Sanskrit Press, 1813).
Bābūrāma (ed.), Kiratarjuniya, with the commentary of Mallinātha called Ghaṇṭāpatha (Calcutta: Sanskrit Press, 1814).
Colebrooke, Henry Thomas, (trans.), Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Calcutta: Hindoostanee Press, 1810).
Colebrooke, Henry Thomas, Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhàscara (London: John Murray, 1817).
Colebrooke, Thomas Edward, The Life of H. T. Colebrooke (London: Trübner, 1873).
Rocher, Rosanne and Rocher, Ludo, The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company (London: Routledge, 2012).

Letter from the Government of Bengal to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, 31 Jan 1798. British Library, IOR/F/4/39/974.
Letter from William Carey to Fort William College Council, 4 May 1814 (Government of Bengal Proceedings 19 Jul 1814, No. 34). British Library, IOR/P/8/36.
Amarakoṣa. British Library, IO San 3162.
Bījagaṇita (chapter on algebra from Bhāskara’s Siddhāntaśiromaṇi). British Library, IOL San 871b.
Dhātupradīpa. British Library, IO San 434a. 
Mahābhārata. British Library, IO San 1771.
Vyavahārasiddhāntapīyūṣā. British Library, IO San 3143.

David Woodbridge, Provenance Researcher Sanskrit Collections (REAP pilot project 2023-2025)

Across Southeast Asia, textiles were used to adorn, protect and to add merit and value to written works. These textiles are works of art in themselves, featuring intricate patterns and in some cases inscriptions that provide contextual information about manuscripts. Often, they were custom-made from valuable hand-woven silk brocades, dyed or painted cotton, as well as fabrics with complex designs made in the ikat technique. The use of imported materials like chintz, silk damask, felt, or printed fabrics reflects the trade and exchange relations within Southeast Asia and beyond.

A new display highlights the British Library’s collaboration with external experts and graduate students. Chevening Fellow Noon Methaporn Singhanan researched and catalogued manuscript textiles during a 12-month project in 2022-23 and Khin Kyi Phyu Thant described and translated Burmese Sazigyo (manuscript binding ribbons) during a five-week internship organised through the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in 2022.

Tube-skirt wrapper for palm leaf manuscripts. Northern Laos, mid-20th century, purchased in 2012. British Library, Or 16886

This protective wrapper was made from a re-purposed luxury tube-skirt to wrap around several bundles of palm leaf manuscripts. It originates from a Tai Moei ethnic community in northern Laos. The main section of this woman’s tube-skirt has an ikat pattern, where the yarn has been dyed before weaving. It is also intertwined with metal foil threads imported from Europe. The lower section, or 'foot', is a colourful woven textile made from silk and cotton yarns. Valuable textiles or clothes like this example were often re-purposed as wrappers for Buddhist scriptures in Laos and neighbouring regions. Donating clothes of deceased loved ones to re-use as manuscript wrappers was regarded as an act of merit in the Lao Buddhist tradition, and they reflected the faith and wealth of the deceased and the donors.

Burmese wrapping mat for a kammavaca manuscript. Myanmar (Burma), 18th century, purchased in 1838 from J. Polson Esq. British Library, Egerton MS 735

This vibrant mat was used to wrap a beautifully decorated, lacquered kammavaca manuscript which contains a ritual text in Pali language, used in monastic ordination ceremonies. The colourful zig-zag patterns were made locally by intertwining cotton yarn and bamboo slats. This type of manuscript cover was widely used in Myanmar, but also in Northern Thailand and Laos. The combination of bamboo slats and yarn made it very strong and therefore it protected the manuscript well against insects and the elements.

Burmese sazigyo with inscription. Myanmar (Burma), dated 1894, donated by Jill Morley Smith in 2011. British Library Or 16817

Sazigyo (binding ribbons) were made by women weavers in Myanmar to wrap around Buddhist palm leaf manuscripts. This multicoloured example of exceptional quality is nearly five metres long and contains text in round Burmese script, auspicious symbols and figures. It was made in the tablet weaving technique on a portable loom worn strapped around the back of the weaver. This method uses small tablets (or cards) with holes through which the threads of the warp are strung. Inscriptions and patterns are created by turning the tablets. Generally, the texts on sazigyo record merits or prayers, names of donors, and sometimes location and date of the donation.

Malay cloth envelope. Sumatra, Indonesia, 1824, Raffles Family Collection. British Library MSS EUR D.742/1/61

Malay letters to and from rulers were often sent in yellow silk or cotton envelopes. The name and address of the recipient was written on a piece of paper which was wrapped around the fabric pouch and fastened on the reverse by entwining the two intricately cut-out paper ends. Shown here are envelopes from two Royal Malay letters sent to Thomas Stamford Raffles, then Governor of Bengkulu on the island of Sumatra, in 1824. The yellow envelope (above) is made of imported patterned damask silk and was from the Adipati or senior minister of the city of Palembang, Sumatra. The plain cotton envelope (below) was from the Temenggung, the ruler of Johor on the Malay peninsula.

Malay cloth envelope. Johor, Malaysia, 1824, Raffles Family Collection, British Library MSS EUR D.742/1/149 & 180.

Curators of the Southeast Asia Section, with contributions by Noon Methaporn Singhanan and Khin Kyi Phyu Thant

Further reading
Burmese manuscript conservation success. Royal Asiatic Society (accessed 20 November 2024) 
Chan, Vanessa, Sarsikyo. Woven Buddhist ribbons of Myanmar. Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre Working Paper No. 29 (Dec 2018) 
Igunma, Jana and Noon Methaporn Singhanan, Drawn from across the globe: manuscript textiles in the Southeast Asian collections. British Library Asian African Studies blog (2 October 2023) 

This is the second in a series of five blog posts on the provenance of the Colebrooke Collection of Sanskrit manuscripts now in the British Library, following the first post, which introduced the Colebrooke Family and the East India Company.

 

According to the historian Christopher Fleming, while in India, Colebrooke ‘assembled the world’s most extensive collection of Sanskrit legal manuscripts’ (Fleming 2021, p. 192). Why did he do this, and what is the story behind this?

 

Pages from Colebrooke’s copy of the Vyavahāratattva, a legal digest composed by the sixteenth-century scholar Raghunandana. These pages include Colebrooke’s own notes and translation. British Library, IO San 191c

 

Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) arrived in India in 1783, while Warren Hastings was Governor General. In the preceding years, Hastings had been responsible for a range of reforms to the East India Company’s governance in India. One of the areas he focused on was the administration of justice. A new system of courts was set up, operating at local and regional levels and overseen by superior courts in Calcutta [Kolkata]. Though the judges were British, they were to try cases according to local law. Furthermore, in cases ‘regarding inheritance, marriage, and caste, and all religious usages and institutions’ this was to be tailored according to whether those appearing in the courts were of the Muslim or Hindu faith (IOR/V/8/15). To ensure this was done correctly, local law officers were appointed, and in the case of Hindu law, these officers were referred to as ‘pandits’.

 

For centuries it had been a practice in India for pandits who were experts in law to be consulted during legal disputes. The Company’s employment of them as law officers can therefore be seen as a continuation of this policy. At the same time, however, Hastings also sought to set down a standardised body of Hindu law ‘in order to render more complete the judicial regulations, to preclude arbitrary and partial judgements, and to guide the decisions of the several courts’ (IOR/E/4/31, f 447). A team of eleven pandits were commissioned to compile a suitable reference work, and a copy of their completed digest, titled Vivādārṇavasetu, can be found in the Colebrooke Collection (IO San 3145a). It was later translated, via Persian, into English as A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits.

 

Front page of A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits (London, 1776).  British Library, 26.i.6

 

Perceived deficiencies in Hasting’s code led to a new digest being commissioned, under the direction of the scholar and judge Sir William Jones. Again, pandits were employed to compile the material under the oversight of Jones, who was also to make a direct translation into English. However, Jones died before he could embark on this translation, and the task was taken up by Colebrooke. A copy of the original Sanskrit version of the digest, titled Vivādabhaṅgārṇava, can be found in the Colebrooke Collection (IO San 1767-1770), and the translation was published in 1798 as A Digest of Hindu Law on Contracts and Successions.

 

Front page to the first volume of A Digest of Hindu Law on Contracts and Successions (Calcutta, 1798). British Library, 5319.f.12.

 

However, Colebrooke was dissatisfied with this digest. In particular, he felt it was too long (the English translation consisted of four volumes), and he blamed this on the ‘copious commentary’ produced by Jagannātha Tarkapañcānana, the pandit in charge of the compilation (Colebrooke 1798, p. ix). Shortly after this, Colebrooke proposed a supplementary work and offered to oversee the work of the pandits, adding, "I should restrain the compilers from inserting a long train of argument in support, or in refutation, of the opinions cited by them, which has so greatly swelled the digest of Law on Contracts and Succession" (IOR/F/4/39/974)

 

The pandits, first and foremost, were scholars who were concerned with understanding the complexities of legal tradition and debate. The interpretation of Hindu law varied greatly across India, so for the pandits it was important to pay attention to these differences. Colebrooke, however, was concerned with establishing principles which could be applied in a uniform way across the different regions ruled by the British. He therefore became impatient with the pandits he employed for his new work. This is documented in a marginal note he added to a manuscript one of the pandits, called Bāla Śarman Pāyaguṇḍe, had produced for him: "After the experience I have had, that no Pandit is capable (or adapted by his habits of thinking) to compile a digest in the form I require, I must now seriously set about compiling it myself" (IO San 37).

 

A page from the Dharmaśāstrasaṃgraha with Colebrooke’s notes. British Library, IO San 37.

 

Colebrooke would continue to employ pandits to supply material for him, but he now took on responsibility for compiling the final text himself. His work on the supplementary digest continued for a number of years, but was ultimately abandoned. Instead, in 1810, Colebrooke published Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance, an annotated English translation of the Dāyabhāga and the Mitākṣarā, two twelfth-century legal texts. In the preface, he explained why he had decided to publish this translation rather than his planned supplementary digest:

"In a general compilation, where the authorities are greatly multiplied, and the doctrines of many different schools, and of numerous authors are contrasted and compared, the reader is at a loss to collect the doctrines of a particular school and to follow the train of reasoning by which they are maintained. He is confounded by the perpetual conflict of discordant opinions and jarring deductions; and by the frequent transition from the positions of one sect to the principles of another. It may be useful then, that such a compilation should be preceded by the separate publication of the most approved works of each school. By exhibiting in an exact translation the text of the author with notes selected from the glosses of his commentators or from the works of other writers of the same school, a correct knowledge of that part of the Hindu law, which is expressly treated by him, will be made more easily attainable, than by trusting solely to a general compilation" (Colebrooke 1810, p. iii).

 

Colebrooke therefore sought to avoid the uncertainty and confusion created, as he saw it, by the many voices of Hindu legal scholarship, and instead to bring into focus what he identified as the two original and distinct ‘schools’ of law which existed in the regions of India under British rule. His translation included ‘annotations necessary to the illustration of the text’, but these, he explained, could be disregarded by those unfamiliar with Sanskrit. The English reader, he insisted, could rely on his scholarship:

"Having verified with great care the quotations of authors, as far as means are afforded to me by my own collection of Sanscrit law books (which includes, I believe, nearly all that are extant) I have added at the foot of the page notes of references to the places in which the texts are found. They will be satisfactory to the reader as demonstrating the general correctness of the original citations" (Colebrooke 1810, p. v).

 

Interestingly, then, the reason the Colebrooke Collection contains such a large number of Sanskrit legal manuscripts is Colebrooke’s dislike of the scholarly practices of the pandits who produced these manuscripts for him. Frustrated by their attention to the interpretative nuances of Hindu law, and desiring to produce a legal framework which could be easily applied by the British, Colebrooke took it upon himself to study and interpret Hindu law. To do this, he gathered his famous collection of Sanskrit legal manuscripts. However, despite his aversion to the methods of the pandits, he was nevertheless dependent on them to acquire, or produce, copies of the texts he required. The next blog post will look at the stories of two of these pandits.

 

In the third blog post on the provenance of the Colebrooke Collection, we will look at the stories of two of the pandits who worked with Colebrooke.

 

Works Consulted

Colebrooke, Henry Thomas (trans.), A Digest of Hindu Law on Contracts and Successions (Calcutta: Honourable Company's Press, 1798).

Colebrooke, Henry Thomas, (trans.), Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Calcutta: Hindoostanee Press, 1810).

Fleming, Christopher T., Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Letter from the Government of Bengal to the Court of Directors, 25 March 1773. British Library, IOR/E/4/31, f 447.

Letter from H. T. Colebrooke to the Government of Bengal, 20 August 1797. British Library, IOR/F/4/39/974.

Regulation No. 27, from Regulations for the Administration of Justice, recorded on the Revenue Proceedings of Government, on the 28th March 1780; and passed by the Governor General and Council on the 11th April 1780. British Library, IOR/V/8/15.

Dharmaśāstrasaṃgraha. British Library, IO San 37.

Vivādārṇavasetu. British Library, IO San 3145a.

Vivādabhaṅgārṇava. British Library, IO San 1767-1770.

 

David Woodbridge, Provenance Researcher Sanskrit Collections (REAP pilot project 2023-2025)